St. Martin Massive!: A Snapshot of Popular Artists Book

Reads like a disorienting fusion of high Modernist stream-of-consciousness, Kafka's psychological claustrophobia and the postmodern penchant for shifting personas and unreliable narrators. It could be considered a quite impressive (if impenetrable) literary achievement if stripped of its context-- that is, a record of its author's descent into the schizophrenia from which he would never reemerge. Basically, it's several hundred pages of this type of thing:

"I am the artist who loves shapes and all kinds of beauty. Beauty is not a relative thing. Beauty is God. God is beauty with feeling. Beauty is in feeling. I love beauty because I feel it and therefore understand it. Thinking people write nonsense about beauty. Beauty cannot be discussed. Beauty cannot be criticized. I am no criticism. Criticism is an attempt to be clever. I flaunt my beauty. I feel love for beauty. I am not looking for straight noses. I like straight noses. I like my wife's nose because it has feeling."

I fully expected to get a little ways into the book and have to skim the rest, but I have to say, once I adjusted to the general ebb and flow of Nijinsky's mental associations it became a fascinating read, especially when he'll wander, almost accidentally, into musings of his dancing career and the people associated with it (Diaghilev, Nijinska, his various patrons, etc). To my surprise, I ended up reading the whole thing. Those looking for Nijinsky to provide any kind of extended commentary on his dancing or career will be disappointed, however, because he barely mentions it directly (I'd wager just several pages worth in the entire volume), and the "unexpurgated" part doesn't mean juicy sex details, but rather long digressions on things like bowel movements.

In it's own way quite beautiful, but also ultimately, and inevitably, sad.

"I loved the Ballets Russes. I gave my whole heart to it. I worked like an ox. I lived like a martyr."